What is the internet, really?
In short: The internet is a worldwide network of networks: homes, offices, phone companies and data centres all linked together by cables, radio and shared rules. Information travels across it in small pieces called packets, which are passed from network to network until they arrive.
A network of networks
A network is simply two or more devices connected so they can share information. Your home Wi-Fi, with your phone, laptop and smart TV, is a small network. Your office has a bigger one. A mobile phone company runs a huge one.
The internet is what you get when all of these separate networks agree to connect to each other. No single company owns it. Instead, thousands of organisations each run their own part and agree to pass traffic along for one another. That is why people call it "a network of networks".
A helpful comparison is the road system. Your street is small and local. It joins a bigger road, which joins a motorway, which links cities and countries. Nobody owns every road, yet you can drive almost anywhere because the roads connect and everyone follows the same rules.
What actually carries the data
It is easy to imagine the internet floating in the air, but most of it is very physical:
- Cables under the street, often made of fibre: thin strands of glass that carry information as flashes of light.
- Cables under the sea that link continents. Most traffic between countries travels this way, not by satellite.
- Radio for the last short hop: Wi-Fi in your home and mobile signals from phone masts.
- Buildings full of computers, called data centres, where websites, videos and apps are stored.
So when you send a photo to a relative abroad, it may travel by Wi-Fi to your router, through cables in your town, across a sea cable, and then back out by radio to their phone. All of that usually takes well under a second.
Packets: sending a letter in pieces
Information on the internet is not sent in one big lump. It is chopped into small pieces called packets. Each packet carries a small part of your message, plus a label saying where it came from and where it is going.
Think of posting a long letter by splitting it across many numbered postcards. Each postcard can take a different route. At the other end, the numbers let the receiver put them back in order, and ask again for any that went missing. This makes the internet tough: if one road is blocked, packets simply take another.
The labels use IP addresses, which work like postal addresses for devices. You can read more in What's an IP address?
The internet and the web are not the same thing
People often use the two words as if they mean the same thing, but they do not.
- The internet is the roads: the connections that move data around.
- The web is one of the things that travels on those roads: the pages you open in a browser.
Email, video calls, online games, app updates and messaging all use the internet too, but they are not "the web". Knowing the difference helps when something breaks. If your email works but one website does not, the internet is fine and the problem is with that one site.
Who is in charge?
No government or company runs the whole thing. Your internet service provider (ISP), the company you pay for broadband or mobile data, connects you to its network. That network connects to others. Independent groups agree the technical rules, called protocols, so that equipment from different makers can understand each other. A protocol is just an agreed way of doing something, like everyone agreeing to drive on the same side of the road.
Some parts are coordinated centrally, such as handing out blocks of addresses and managing website names, so that no two places end up with the same one.
What this means for you
Most "the internet is down" moments are actually a problem much closer to home. Before you call your provider, try this:
- Check whether other devices in the house can get online. If none can, the problem is likely your router or your provider.
- Restart the router: switch it off, wait about 30 seconds, then switch it back on and give it a few minutes.
- If only one device is affected, turn its Wi-Fi off and on again, or restart it.
- If one website fails but others work, the problem is probably that website, not your connection.
Tip: Your router is the front door between your home and the internet. Keep its software up to date and change any default password printed on the sticker, so strangers cannot change its settings.
Want the technical version? See What is a network?
Key takeaways
- The internet is many separate networks that agree to connect, not one thing owned by one company.
- Most of it is physical: fibre cables, sea cables, phone masts and data centres.
- Data travels in small labelled pieces called packets, which can take different routes.
- The web is just one service that runs on the internet, alongside email, calls and apps.
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